356 
THE ETHICS OF HORSE MANAGEMENT. 
about these cab horses undergo, and that nearly all the 
punishment they receive is due either to bad driving, care¬ 
lessness, bravado, drunkenness, or cruel disposition. These 
cabmen know nothing or care but little about their animals 5 
sufferings, and, perhaps, neither they nor their masters are 
aware that bad treatment of this kind will wear out horses 
more quickly than hard work with gentleness. They have 
to learn the truth that humanity and interest go hand in hand, 
and that cruelty defeats its object. I never ride in a cab 
the driver of which abuses his horse; it is only encouraging 
him in his cruelty to to be a silent and patronising spectator. 
There is another form of mismanagement wdiich is occa¬ 
sionally seen—though, I believe, much less frequently than 
some years ago, when a common sense method of breaking- 
in horses was not so well understood, and when it was ima¬ 
gined that punishment and training by fear were the chief 
ingredients in the process—this is beating, spurring, and 
abusing animals which, from defective training by incompetent 
men, have become what are called “ shyers / 5 “ jibbers , 55 &c. 
It frequently, very frequently, happens, that horses addicted 
to the last-named habit are intelligent, high-couraged ani¬ 
mals, which, perfectly docile at one time, have become 
through haste and passion on the part of those who havo 
driven them, sulky and obstinate. This is more especially 
the case with young horses; at first many of them are some¬ 
what afraid of the collar, and if not gently and observantly 
treated, will take a positive dislike to it, which may assume the 
form of jibbing, and be most difficult to overcome. An 
ignorant, brutal fellow would, of course, adopt the cruel ex¬ 
pedient of unmercifully beating such an animal to make it 
go; and to prove his utter inability to understand the crea¬ 
ture’s nature, or to manage it rationally, he may even go to 
work to punish it about the head, perhaps the most sensitive 
part of the horse’s body, to cause it to go forward—a strange 
procedure, certainly. It is scarcely necessary to say that the 
brutal treatment resorted to in order to compel a jibbing 
horse to go forward has never yet been successful, and that 
no one deserving the title of “ horseman” (I will not say 
“ horsewoman,”—I am sure no woman would cruelly beat a 
horse) would venture to try it; for it is as unreasonable as it 
is pernicious. If patient persuasion and mild coercion do 
not succeed brutality never will. The horse, in all proba¬ 
bility a highly sensitive and sensible animal, has become a 
jibber through cruelty or mismanagement, or inability to 
understand its requirements, and it is only by patience and 
gentleness that the impression the creature has acquired can 
